Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
